Jeff Cronenweth – Cinematographer – The Social Network

This comes from my favorite David Fincher film The Social Network (2010). The cinematographer of this film, Jeff Cronenweth, is probably one of the few cinematographers in Hollywood who can handle Fincher’s perfectionist style of directing. Fincher has worked with a handful of cinematographers through the years and only Cronenweth has lasted more then two movies with him. With this movie Fincher wanted to take away the glamor of the picture. He was very strict with the extra lights he allowed Cronenweth to use. He wouldn’t let him spend more then twenty minutes to get any one scene lit in fact (a very short time for Hollywood films). This is not to say The Social Network is a bland film. I believe it is quite beautiful. However, the beauty comes in the way Fincher and Cronenweth frame their shots and the way the camera moves. The films color scheme is subdued and most of the scenes have a dark atmosphere to them. There literally is only one handheld shot in the whole movie. For the most part Fincher and Cronenweth gave the film an almost technical smoothness. You could easily say the style of filming was a direct reflection of the main character Mark Zuckerberg. He is a genius who shows almost no emotion on the outside. His actions are almost more mechanical then human and their is a sort of darkness that is simmering in the background of his character. The main score used for the movie is also a reflection of Zuckerberg. It has a simple beautiful melody playing in the foreground while an unstable beat plays in the background. The farther we go in the story the more the beat overwhelms the simple melody.

The reason I am using this shot is because I think it perfectly expresses the key conflict in the movie. In the foreground we have Mark Zuckerberg. His head is turned away from the camera. As I said before, his emotion is deeply hidden inside himself so even if the camera was on him we would probably not get much more from him then we do now. The focus of this shot is Mark’s friend Eduardo. Usually when framing the main character of the shot the director places him to the left of right third of the frame. Rarely in a movie do you see a character framed directly in the middle. However, this is exactly what Fincher and Cronenweth do with Eduardo. This creates an uneasiness that goes perfectly with the way Eduardo is feeling. Also look at the strong light source being used. There is nothing lighting up the right side of Eduardo’s face. The light is doing the opposite of glamorizing, it is showing a character who is distraught and signifying Eduardo’s views on the other characters. The characters are not wearing any vibrant colors and the environment is subdued in order to allow the audience to easily focus on what Eduardo is saying. The last important peice of this shot is Sean in the background of the shot. There is a reason Sean is placed on the dark side of Eduardo’s face. He is looming over Eduardo just as he is in the context of the movie. The filmmakers could have placed Sean farther to the right of frame but they want to squeeze both Mark and Sean in on Eduardo to create an almost claustrophobic feel. It also looks like they went with a long focal lens in order to sandwich the background with the foreground.